 "Photo: Kari Rosenfeld/The Daily Texan")
Advocacy groups, parents and children gathered at the Texas Capitol on Saturday and yelled “Change we need now!” in an effort to persuade Senate members and President Barack Obama to ratify a United Nations resolution on child rights.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was proposed Nov. 20, 1989. Since then, 193 member countries have ratified the convention, according to the U.N. Treaty Collection Web site.
Somalia announced Friday that it intends to become a party to the convention, leaving the United States as the sole U.N. member who has not ratified the convention.
“The children are the most innocent and most helpless in this equation,” said Jay Johnson-Castro, founder of Border Ambassadors. “We should be protecting them as much as we would protect adults.”
Border Ambassadors advocates for the coexistence of Mexican and American cultures and a cohesive interchange between the two nations. It also supports for minority rights and fights against the establishment of a border wall.
Johnson-Castro said his group first fought for ratification of the convention in 2006 while advocating against the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, which held undocumented immigrant children in cells while they waited for their court proceedings.
Border Ambassadors has organized demonstrations with more than 300 organizations across the nation since then, Castro said, to build public support for the U.N. convention.
“We will no longer tolerate if the children of the United States do not have rights — human rights,” said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “The basic needs of any society is having free human beings.”
According to the convention, every child “should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.” In order to guarantee such an environment, there must be “international cooperation for improving the living conditions of children in every county, in particular in developing countries.”
A May bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is currently in committee, introduced several human rights issues, including Senate ratification of the convention. Advocacy groups stressed Saturday that Senate ratification is only dependent on 67 votes and ultimately the president’s approval.
The groups delivered a petition Friday to the Austin offices of Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett. None were able to comment by press time.
The convention seeks to save children from torture, abduction and sexual exploitation, among many other dangers. It addresses liberty as a human requirement not bound by any age.
Carlos De León, the spokesman and Web master for the Mexican-American advocacy group Brown Berets, went to the rally with four other members of his family, including his younger brother Bruno. He said ratification will require a continued unified effort by the public and advocacy groups, pushing the Senate to address the convention.
“It’s going to secure more rights for the children — give them a bigger voice,” De León said. “We have a moral obligation to uphold the rights of the children in order to secure a positive future for everyone.”
3 comments
This is ridiculous. Will are children be taking their parents to court if they feel these rights are violated because a parent set a curfew. limited internet access, or insisted they attend church on Sunday?Do parents really need the govenment to tell them what is best for their children? This is the last thing that we need ratified this is clearly an attack on the authority of parents and therefore the family.